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2019 | Book

Quality: A Big Canvas Read chapter Read first chapter

Quality

Domains and Dimensions

Author: Prof. S. P. Mukherjee

Publisher: Springer Singapore

Book Series : India Studies in Business and Economics

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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About this book

This book offers a comprehensive overview of quality and quality management. It also explores total quality management, covering its human, technological and analytical imperatives. It also examines quality systems and system standards, highlighting essential features and avoiding a reproduction of the ISO 9000 standard, as well as people-related issues in implementing a quality system. A holistic understanding of quality considerations, which now permeate every aspect of human life, should guide related policies, plans and practices. The book describes the all-pervasive characteristics of quality, putting together diverse definitions of "quality," outlining its different dimensions, and linking it with reliability and innovation. It goes on to assess the quality of measurements in terms of precision, accuracy and uncertainty and discusses managing quality with a focus on business performance. This is followed by a chapter on improving process quality, which is the summum bonum of quality management, and a chapter addressing the crucial problem of measuring customer satisfaction through appropriate models and tools. Further, it covers non-traditional subjects such as quality of life, quality of working life, quality assurance and improvement in education, with special reference to higher education, quality in research and development and characterizes the quality-related policies and practices in Indian industry. The last chapter provides a broad sketch of some recent advances in statistical methods for quality management. Along with the research community, the book’s content is also useful for practitioners and industry watchers.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Quality: A Big Canvas
Abstract
The history of Quality is as old as that of production. Whatever was produced—through a manufacturing process involving machines or simply through manual operations—had some level of quality built into it, essentially in terms of skills in designing, producing and checking conformity with the design. This level in some cases was quite high and in some others pretty low. Taken somewhat simplistically as the collection of features of the product which could meet some use requirements or had some aesthetic or prestige value or had a long life or was user-friendly, a product and its quality were and are still now inseparable. Of course, with emphasis gradually growing on differentiation among products in terms of their quality, a ‘quality product’ has come to mean a product with a high level of quality.
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee
Chapter 2. Quality in Services
Abstract
The pattern of human consumption has changed dramatically over the last few decades, services accounting for more than 40% of the total consumption expenditure against only less than 25% earlier. And quite expectedly, the service sector now contributes a much larger share in the total national income, quite so compared to ‘manufacturing’. Recent estimates put this figure at 58%. Consequently, diversity and quality of services have attracted a lot of attention, and many initiatives have been being taken to improve these.
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee
Chapter 3. Managing Quality Today
Abstract
While Quality Management has been a much-discussed and much-documented subject not merely in the Industrial World but also in all sorts of transactions between a provider and a recipient, managing quality today has become a significantly different task coming out of its pristine boundaries, responding to the remarkable changes that have characterized industry and business today. And a key feature of the changes is the exponentially increasing demand for better quality emanating from greater awareness about more and more advanced production processes.
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee
Chapter 4. Quality Systems and System Standards
Abstract
In the context of a market that insists on specified quality, timely delivery and reasonable and competitive price, it has become a bad necessity for any manufacturing or service organization—right from a big manufacturing house with many distribution and delivery units to a small or medium enterprise that delivers goods and services at the doorstep of each customer—to integrate all its activities that can directly or remotely affect the customer’s perception about quality of its products and services into a composite entity that determines the fate of business. And this entity is the Quality (Management) System that is directly looked after by top management and not as a support process.
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee
Chapter 5. Total Quality Management
Abstract
Economic growth mandates increasing effectiveness and efficiency of all production processes—in manufacturing as well as in service sectors. In this context, Total Quality Management (TQM) has evolved as an approach to enhance the quality of performance in different business processes, both core and support. In fact, TQM has emerged as a movement spreading across different functional areas in an organization and is not confined to quality of products only. It must be added, however, that a Quality Management System on the lines of ISO 9000 series is a concrete and important step to initiate Total Quality Management.
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee
Chapter 6. Quality of Measurements
Abstract
Measurements are basic tools in any scientific investigation. Many exercises in Science and Technology are aimed at improving the existing state of affairs regarding matter, energy, environment and their interactions—among themselves as also with living organisms.
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee
Chapter 7. Analysis of Quality Costs
Abstract
While no one denies or derates the importance of quality in goods and services produced and delivered, some stakeholders argue that building high levels of quality demands considerable expenses on various heads. At the same time, consumerism provides compensations for poor quality from suppliers or service providers. On the one hand, Crosby would claim that ‘Quality is Free’; on the other hand, manufacturers claim that quality has to be paid for. Of course, quality, in this debate, implies something beyond the minimum level of quality which is inseparably present in the product or service.
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee
Chapter 8. Measurement of Customer Satisfaction
Abstract
Customers occupy the centre stage of business and industry today. Customers present a wide array of interests and preferences, requirements and expectations, purchasing powers and demand profiles. In the current globalized and liberalized market economy, understanding customers’ requirements and fulfilling these requirements followed by an assessment of customer satisfaction are the key functions in any business or industry, where quality has come to stay as an international language.
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee
Chapter 9. Improving Process Quality
Abstract
By far the most important task as well as target for Quality Management is to achieve visible (even quantifiable) improvement in process quality. This implies improving the performance of all business processes—both core and also support. In fact, any forward-looking organization striving for excellence must have in place an effort to improve processes on a continuing basis. Continuous process improvement is the motto, and with improved processes leading to new or improved products and services, the organization can offer such new or improved products and services over time. [It must be noted that effort to improve has to be continuous, while the results of improvement by way of new products and services are bound to appear at discrete intervals of time.]
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee
Chapter 10. Quality in Higher Education
Abstract
Discussing quality in the field of education is treading on a slippery ground. The absence of a consensus definition of education coupled with the enigma of quality creates serious problems in this context. The inspiring idea of Swami Vivekananda that ‘education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man’ is too philosophical to allow assurance of quality in education imparted by and in an institution. Similarly, a statement like ‘quality is a way of life’ maybe a laudable one, but may not be of any help in the context of quality assurance in education. Education corresponds to a wide spectrum—covering formal, non-formal and informal education on one dimension, primary, secondary and tertiary or higher along a second dimension, liberal versus professional education along possibly a third dimension, besides similar other differentiations.
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee
Chapter 11. Quality in Research and Development
Abstract
While the need for quality is ubiquitous and there has been a growing emphasis to expand the scope of quality assurance and quality improvement to a wide array of human activities and outcomes thereof, Research and Development with its diverse network of processes and people with specialized knowledge in varying domains working to achieve different objectives—not all clearly or uniquely understood or stated—justifies an approach to quality which is bound to differ from the approach adopted with success in manufacturing and even in service enterprises.
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee
Chapter 12. Quality of Information and Quality System in an Information Industry
Abstract
Individuals and institutions need information, irrespective of their activities and engagements, as producers or users of goods and services in the public or the private sector. Types and amounts (quantity) of information needed will vary from one individual or institution to another. Information is necessary for manufacturing industries and service organizations; for the state administration; for planners and policy-makers; for representatives of people wanting to know about present states of development in different regions and on different dimensions; for the armed forces to meet their operational, tactical and strategic needs; for regional and international organizations attempting to assess relative positions of different countries in regard to economic growth, poverty and hunger, education and health care, violation of human rights; and so on. Besides, there are organizations trying to improve the quality of our environment and the quality of our lives which also need information.
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee
Chapter 13. Quality of Life
Abstract
Starting with quality of manufactured products, we began discussing quality of processes and went on to analyse quality of services. We also characterized the quality of our environment in terms of qualitative and quantitative aspects of its abiotic components, viz. soil, water and air as also the diversity in its biotic components, viz. plants, animals and micro-organism communities. More recently, we experience many different norms and regulations influencing the way we behave and work. As a natural extension of our concerns for quality, we should talk about Quality of Life. And, in this context, we come across wide disparities among different segments of the human population—in different countries, within the same country and within the same social or religious group—in respect of the situations in which they live and work and the extent to which they can satisfy the needs for their self-fulfilment. Looking from a different angle and going back to our earlier engagement with quality of products, processes and services, we find instances where we appreciate the quality of some produce and where the people behind are—within or beyond our knowledge—denied of many basic necessities of life. We also come across situations where people who have access to and who actually possess adequate opportunities for satisfying their needs offer goods and services that fail to satisfy the users. Do we then find a link between Quality of Life available to a producer and the quality of the produce? And does such a link require a definition of Quality of Life that is somewhat different from quality of living?
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee
Chapter 14. Quality—Information Technology Interface
Abstract
The word ‘industry’ has, of late, acquired a comprehensive generic meaning, viz. a human enterprise that carries out the basic functions of procuring, processing and providing. Each of these functions has three discernible facets, viz. planning, executing (as planned) and verifying (to check conformity of execution with plan). In recent times, the ambit of Quality has embraced this broad definition of industry and the scope of Quality Management has expanded significantly to stimulate and absorb many new approaches, tools and techniques.
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee
Chapter 15. Quality Management in Indian Industry
Abstract
Indian industry reflects a rapidly expanding entity with fast-changing product (and service) profiles, management styles and investment portfolios. At any point of time, a lot of diversity in emphasis on quality and cost among different industry types as also among different units within the same industry category comes to notice. Some industries—in both manufacturing and service sectors have realized the all-pervasive need for quality improvement as an integral component of strategic management—have put in place quite a few initiatives in that direction and are striving to achieve organizational excellence. A second discernible category is a bit conservative on quality, with necessary (but not sufficient) attention to comply with regulatory requirements or to boost corporate image, without sincerely linking quality with business. The third category with still a sizeable number includes organizations—large, medium and small engaged in manufacturing as also in providing services—can at the best be branded as ‘tool-pushers’. Some of them do have a Quality System, sometimes certified for conformity with ISO standards, but they lack a commitment to quality. However, their products and services are not always failing to meet customer requirements, if not expectations.
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee
Chapter 16. Reliability—An Extension of Quality
Abstract
Reliability can be looked upon as an extension of quality beyond production, shipment, storage and distribution to the use or deployment phase in the life cycle of a product or service. As has been pointed out in Chap. 1 and spelt out in relevant standards and books, reliability is ‘quality of performance’ and is the composite effect of ‘quality of design’ and ‘quality of conformance’. It is justifiably understood as ‘dependability’ as well—and noting that the question of a product being dependable or not does arise mostly, if not exclusively, with the user or customer at the time the product is being put to use or during the period the product is meant to function. And this way, reliability is very much an aspect of overall quality as defined by Deming.
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee
Chapter 17. Statistics for Quality Management
Abstract
Planning before production, monitoring during production, evaluation at the end of production line and estimation of performance during use or deployment of any product or service delineate the ambit of Quality Management. Quality Planning—which has to be taken up along with product or service Planning—is an interdisciplinary activity wherein statistics (both as data and as a scientific method) has to play a crucial role in view of the uncertainties associated with most entities involved. Science, technology and innovation provide the hard inputs into this activity and statistics coupled with Information Technology is to enhance the contribution of each input, judged by its role in the overall ‘quality’ of the output taken in a broad sense. In the context of a concern for sustainability, this broad sense would remind us of the definition offered by Donkelaar a few decades back.
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
Quality
Author
Prof. S. P. Mukherjee
Copyright Year
2019
Publisher
Springer Singapore
Electronic ISBN
978-981-13-1271-7
Print ISBN
978-981-13-1270-0
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1271-7